Two cameras trained on a large nest atop a dead white oak tree in Sapsucker Woods pond near Ithaca, N.Y., are monitoring the growing family of a pair of great blue herons this spring.

View full sizeCornell Lab of OrnithologyLive cameras are watching a pair of great blue herons nest near Ithaca, N.Y.

The cameras are the idea of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the tree, home to nesting herons since the summer of 2009, is located just outside the lab’s Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity.

There were three aquamarine eggs in the nest by Sunday. Birds using the nest have hatched and fledged four young each year.

Great blue herons typically lay eggs every two days, sometimes three, until the clutch is complete. It will be another 25 to 30 days before the chicks hatch, and they will spend another 7 to 8 weeks in the nest before they fledge.

View full sizeCornell Lab of OrnithologyArchived video of the birds courting and laying eggs is available on the web site

Visitors to the Cornell web cameras will be able to view the baby birds being fed a steady diet of fish and frogs later this year.

The nest is about four feet across and a foot deep, and almost completely surrounds the tree trunk.

The Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary, home to the 10-acre lake and the tree, was named for the yellow-bellied sapsucker nest found there in 1909 by bird artist Louis Agazziz Fuertes, and includes 230 acres of forest